Going Through a Rough Patch

This post will be brief. I’m sorta going through a rough patch on my battle with depression; this week, so bear with me.  I’m going to give you all a brief break for a week or so while I add a new outlet in a new genre called the Florida Jaycee Alumni.

 You may recall I was the president of the Florida Jaycees(Junior Chamber of Commerce) in 1990-91.  I spent over ten years of my life culminating in, at that time, a 20,000 member organization. My newly found reunion group that John F Kennedy, Gerald Ford, and many other prominent figures in the US were members and tout their success from those early days.

Going down this memory road has been fun but also tends to violate my own advice as to visit ONLY the past and not tarry too long; because this week was largely absorbing my mind in glory days and not “what do I do now” I sense that of us who were considered in many ways “overachievers” it seems not logical why we should just be content with our successes and move past the not so successful moments.

But the feeling of your best days are behind you, and the world is so different, albeit screwed up that there is no place for me.  If you are one of those garden variety depressants, then you know where I’m coming from.  I tell myself, and a cadre of others tell me, just to wait upon the Lord. Well, many times, I feel like I’m surrounded by two groups, those who await the coming apocalypse or those waiting for the return of Christ. 

 Many I fear are more like the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15)  who just wanted to stop charging ahead, sit on their ass and wait for Jesus and drop out of the responsibility of earthly life.  I want to charge ahead, do good deeds, build things, demonstrate the power of a believer, in short, get off the bench and score some points for the good guys. I’m just stuck. The financial chains that bind me are great, but I have overcome worse; the deafening silence from God is unbearable, being unheard by those closest is breeding loneliness, and I have lost my passion for most everything. Writing this blog is different and somewhat satisfying, and hopefully, in my small way, I am helping others battle some of the same things I fight with.

I think my biggest challenge, while I’m not the sharpest tack in the box, is that I’ve become bored with the world I live in.  Change of scenery, activity, projects, business, theology, doesn’t appeal to me.  I’m not thrilled to be alive in this fallen world interrupted ever so rarely with a little hope and spark in others who are going somewhere. Don’t get me wrong I choose not to take my own life. I’m too close to the heavenly goal line to fumble the ball here and lose the game of eternal life and have the trap door open and drop into the smoking section (and I don’t even smoke).

 So, where am I? Jesus is there sometimes on a “just in time” basis. I talk to Jesus, and he answers with actions I can at least sense if not actually see and experience. The Heavenly Father, not so much. The world and everything I can sense seems to be whizzing by going nowhere, and what is it that I’m supposed to do? I feel disconnected from my environment, nothing to see here move on, to what?

 I give thanks daily to God for my provision, at least for now a roof over my head and a beautiful little piece of real estate, my wife, my kids, and my dog when they’re not mean to me lol. Still, I’m missing that calling, that mission, that thing that goes beyond Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 “meaningless Meaningless it’s all meaningless.”  Even the stuff I really thought was from God, and not my own understanding isn’t cutting it.  I have no choice but to wait upon the Lord.  Do I really have any other options?  Maybe someone can help me out here.